[Contents]CHAPTER VICHAPTER VIACROSS MELVILLE BAYBy the twentieth of July we were pretty nearly across Melville Bay. That was just exactly a month from the time we started from home which is most awfully good time. Of course we were very lucky for all the way we had practically no real trouble with ice.Melville Bay usually is about the most dangerous and hardest place in the north. Lots of years it may take weeks to make the passage, and sometimes there just isn’t any way to get by it. Later Dr. Rasmussen told me that he has been drifting, frozen in the pack ice, for six weeks solid while trying to get through to the north, and in mid-summer at that.[63]After we left Duck Island I put in quite some time getting our things ready for trading and for presents. Of course we weren’t going to do any real trading, except for little personal things some of us wanted. Most of the stuff was to give natives who helped us in the hunting and collecting of specimens. One of my nice jobs was filling a lot of tin cans with screw tops with candy and sugar. And we also sorted out some gay sweaters and jerseys which Mr. Alex Taylor, who lives at Rye, had given the expedition. (All our crew, by the way, now have Alex Taylor sweaters and they certainly came in handy.)We arrived at Cape York on the night of July 20th. Cape York is a big cape which marks the northern end of Melville Bay and really is the beginning of far North Greenland. The people living there and in the few settlements further north are the Smith Sound tribe of Eskimos, who live nearer the North Pole than any other people. About at this[64]latitude is further north than the most northerly points of the mainland of any of the continents, North America, Europe, or Asia. So we felt we really were beginning to get pretty far north.In a Fjord Back of Upernivik.In a Fjord Back of Upernivik.The Cape itself is a high mountain which sort of spills right down into the sea. The slopes, some of them, are quite red, and the snow is all colored crimson too, from a sort of dust which seems to cover it. This part is called the Crimson Cliffs, and they have been seen and described by about every Arctic expedition. In behind the cape is a great glacier which breaks off right into the water very conveniently. Cap’n Bob put theMorrisseyright up alongside the ice wall and men jumped down on the glacier from the bowsprit and carried lines and fastened the ship so she lay right alongside, as if the ice were a wharf. Of course there was no wind and the water was quiet.Then they took a hose and ran it up a way[65]and put one end in one of the many streams which were running down the top of the glacier, melted snow water. There was enough slope to carry the water into our big tank on deck. Also the sailors filled the barrels, using buckets. It was a great way to get a full load of real ice water.While we were working in the Eskimos came off in their kayaks. We bought a fine kayak for a rifle and some ammunition. The very next day, when we were ashore, we found that the owner of the traded kayak already had a new one well started. I suppose in a few days more he was all fixed up with a boat again. And with his really fine rifle he ought to do most awfully well hunting. I certainly hope so. A kayak to an Eskimo is about the most important thing in life. I imagine a rifle would come next. Compared to an automobile with us, our auto is only a luxury which we really could get along without.Tupiks, the Eskimo Summer Houses Made of Skins, at Karnah.Tupiks, the Eskimo Summer Houses Made of Skins, at Karnah.About a mile from the little settlement of[66]Cape York there is a “bird mountain.” That’s what they call the places where they find the dovkies, or little auks. These are small birds which live on mountain sides where there are talus slopes—that is, big slides of loose rocks all piled up. They make their nests down in the holes and cracks and they are very hard to find.An Eskimo went with us in the launch around to this bird mountain. We climbed up the slope to a regular place they use where there was a sort of rough blind made out of the loose stones. He carried a net with a long handle. We sat down on the slope, partly hidden by the blind. Then the birds would fly past, always in the same direction. They seemed to be always on the move, getting up off the rocks and swinging around in a great circle out over the sea and back again. There were thousands of them.As a bird would fly past us, almost near enough to touch sometimes, the Eskimo[67]would make a quick swoop with the net, andplopa dovkie would be in it. Then he would quickly pull in the net, take the bird out, kill it and be ready for another. This is chiefly the work for women who are awfully good at it and catch hundreds and I guess thousands. They are fine eating, and the skins are used for making bird feather clothing, as lining to wear next the skin.After our Eskimo friend Kaweah had showed us how to do it, I tried. It looked awfully easy. But it wasn’t. I made a lot of misses.Dad and Dan Streeter were looking on and taking pictures, and they laughed as I swiped at the birds and missed them.“Three strikes and out!” they’d call when I scored three misses.But after a while I did catch a few, and some I just hit with the net pole and knocked them down, sort of stunned, when we got them. Dad and Dan also tried, but they[68]didn’t break any records. A fellow with a batting eye like Babe Ruth ought to do pretty well at this game. Anyway, it was great fun, and was of course the first time I ever caught birds with a net. Funnily, almost the next day I actually did catch some others with a loop on a string.Where the vessel lay that afternoon was right next a big lot of bay ice, pans of ice with some water between them. In the distance here and there we could see seal. They sit up in the sun, but almost always right near a hole in the ice. And the minute they get frightened they slide off and are gone. Even if you shoot them, unless death is very quick, they are likely to flop off into the water, where they sink.Dan and one of the Eskimos tried some stalking, crawling up on the seal orpooeeseeas the Eskimos call them. And he had pretty good luck, hitting three, two of which they got. They also got pretty wet crawling over[69]the ice and through pools of water melted by the sun. Anyway, it was our first game. The seal meat was fine, too.The next morning we had moved northward to Parker Snow Bay. We were anchored there when I woke up. It’s a beautiful place, a little bay right on the coast, with a bit of flat land with a glacier coming right down behind it and stretching up to the great ice cap. Two steep fine mountains are on either side of the glacier, and one of them we named Bartlett Peak. Along the shore one of these mountains has steep cliffs which fall right down into the water. And there is a great bird rookery, or loomery as the Newfoundland folks call it.On the shore we saw a blue fox. And then after breakfast we went to work at the rookery to get specimens. It was a beautiful calm sunny day and we really had a grand time. Some of us were at it until afternoon and sent back a dory to bring us some lunch.[70]We climbed up a cliff, getting at it on the easier side of a steep little point. From there we could reach right down to some of the nests. We could even touch some of the birds, both auks and kittywakes. They were sitting on the nests, either with eggs or very young birds. (Three weeks later when we came back there were many more young ones.)It was here that I used a light line to catch several birds. I made a slip noose in the end and let it a few feet over the edge of the cliff so that it rested on a nest. Then when the bird came back, if she settled down right, I pulled the noose suddenly. It worked quite well.Bob Peary, who is very handy at getting around and climbing, put a rope around himself and we let him down over the cliff to get eggs and nests. Art Young and Carl were the “anchors” on the other end of the rope. Once on his way down in one place Bob[71]stepped on a loose rock and knocked it out. When it fell it started a big bunch and they all went tumbling down into the water with a great splash and crash.The cliff was right straight up and down, with a sort of shelf sticking out perhaps twenty feet from the water. After a while Bob went down there, where he could stand and then Dad was let down with a small movie camera to get some pictures. Later the launch went around below them, and while the men at the very top held the line tight, the men in the launch held it tight at the bottom and first Dad and then Robert slid down it into the boat, after first letting down the bucket with eggs and a box of nests and some little ones they had gathered up.[72]
[Contents]CHAPTER VICHAPTER VIACROSS MELVILLE BAYBy the twentieth of July we were pretty nearly across Melville Bay. That was just exactly a month from the time we started from home which is most awfully good time. Of course we were very lucky for all the way we had practically no real trouble with ice.Melville Bay usually is about the most dangerous and hardest place in the north. Lots of years it may take weeks to make the passage, and sometimes there just isn’t any way to get by it. Later Dr. Rasmussen told me that he has been drifting, frozen in the pack ice, for six weeks solid while trying to get through to the north, and in mid-summer at that.[63]After we left Duck Island I put in quite some time getting our things ready for trading and for presents. Of course we weren’t going to do any real trading, except for little personal things some of us wanted. Most of the stuff was to give natives who helped us in the hunting and collecting of specimens. One of my nice jobs was filling a lot of tin cans with screw tops with candy and sugar. And we also sorted out some gay sweaters and jerseys which Mr. Alex Taylor, who lives at Rye, had given the expedition. (All our crew, by the way, now have Alex Taylor sweaters and they certainly came in handy.)We arrived at Cape York on the night of July 20th. Cape York is a big cape which marks the northern end of Melville Bay and really is the beginning of far North Greenland. The people living there and in the few settlements further north are the Smith Sound tribe of Eskimos, who live nearer the North Pole than any other people. About at this[64]latitude is further north than the most northerly points of the mainland of any of the continents, North America, Europe, or Asia. So we felt we really were beginning to get pretty far north.In a Fjord Back of Upernivik.In a Fjord Back of Upernivik.The Cape itself is a high mountain which sort of spills right down into the sea. The slopes, some of them, are quite red, and the snow is all colored crimson too, from a sort of dust which seems to cover it. This part is called the Crimson Cliffs, and they have been seen and described by about every Arctic expedition. In behind the cape is a great glacier which breaks off right into the water very conveniently. Cap’n Bob put theMorrisseyright up alongside the ice wall and men jumped down on the glacier from the bowsprit and carried lines and fastened the ship so she lay right alongside, as if the ice were a wharf. Of course there was no wind and the water was quiet.Then they took a hose and ran it up a way[65]and put one end in one of the many streams which were running down the top of the glacier, melted snow water. There was enough slope to carry the water into our big tank on deck. Also the sailors filled the barrels, using buckets. It was a great way to get a full load of real ice water.While we were working in the Eskimos came off in their kayaks. We bought a fine kayak for a rifle and some ammunition. The very next day, when we were ashore, we found that the owner of the traded kayak already had a new one well started. I suppose in a few days more he was all fixed up with a boat again. And with his really fine rifle he ought to do most awfully well hunting. I certainly hope so. A kayak to an Eskimo is about the most important thing in life. I imagine a rifle would come next. Compared to an automobile with us, our auto is only a luxury which we really could get along without.Tupiks, the Eskimo Summer Houses Made of Skins, at Karnah.Tupiks, the Eskimo Summer Houses Made of Skins, at Karnah.About a mile from the little settlement of[66]Cape York there is a “bird mountain.” That’s what they call the places where they find the dovkies, or little auks. These are small birds which live on mountain sides where there are talus slopes—that is, big slides of loose rocks all piled up. They make their nests down in the holes and cracks and they are very hard to find.An Eskimo went with us in the launch around to this bird mountain. We climbed up the slope to a regular place they use where there was a sort of rough blind made out of the loose stones. He carried a net with a long handle. We sat down on the slope, partly hidden by the blind. Then the birds would fly past, always in the same direction. They seemed to be always on the move, getting up off the rocks and swinging around in a great circle out over the sea and back again. There were thousands of them.As a bird would fly past us, almost near enough to touch sometimes, the Eskimo[67]would make a quick swoop with the net, andplopa dovkie would be in it. Then he would quickly pull in the net, take the bird out, kill it and be ready for another. This is chiefly the work for women who are awfully good at it and catch hundreds and I guess thousands. They are fine eating, and the skins are used for making bird feather clothing, as lining to wear next the skin.After our Eskimo friend Kaweah had showed us how to do it, I tried. It looked awfully easy. But it wasn’t. I made a lot of misses.Dad and Dan Streeter were looking on and taking pictures, and they laughed as I swiped at the birds and missed them.“Three strikes and out!” they’d call when I scored three misses.But after a while I did catch a few, and some I just hit with the net pole and knocked them down, sort of stunned, when we got them. Dad and Dan also tried, but they[68]didn’t break any records. A fellow with a batting eye like Babe Ruth ought to do pretty well at this game. Anyway, it was great fun, and was of course the first time I ever caught birds with a net. Funnily, almost the next day I actually did catch some others with a loop on a string.Where the vessel lay that afternoon was right next a big lot of bay ice, pans of ice with some water between them. In the distance here and there we could see seal. They sit up in the sun, but almost always right near a hole in the ice. And the minute they get frightened they slide off and are gone. Even if you shoot them, unless death is very quick, they are likely to flop off into the water, where they sink.Dan and one of the Eskimos tried some stalking, crawling up on the seal orpooeeseeas the Eskimos call them. And he had pretty good luck, hitting three, two of which they got. They also got pretty wet crawling over[69]the ice and through pools of water melted by the sun. Anyway, it was our first game. The seal meat was fine, too.The next morning we had moved northward to Parker Snow Bay. We were anchored there when I woke up. It’s a beautiful place, a little bay right on the coast, with a bit of flat land with a glacier coming right down behind it and stretching up to the great ice cap. Two steep fine mountains are on either side of the glacier, and one of them we named Bartlett Peak. Along the shore one of these mountains has steep cliffs which fall right down into the water. And there is a great bird rookery, or loomery as the Newfoundland folks call it.On the shore we saw a blue fox. And then after breakfast we went to work at the rookery to get specimens. It was a beautiful calm sunny day and we really had a grand time. Some of us were at it until afternoon and sent back a dory to bring us some lunch.[70]We climbed up a cliff, getting at it on the easier side of a steep little point. From there we could reach right down to some of the nests. We could even touch some of the birds, both auks and kittywakes. They were sitting on the nests, either with eggs or very young birds. (Three weeks later when we came back there were many more young ones.)It was here that I used a light line to catch several birds. I made a slip noose in the end and let it a few feet over the edge of the cliff so that it rested on a nest. Then when the bird came back, if she settled down right, I pulled the noose suddenly. It worked quite well.Bob Peary, who is very handy at getting around and climbing, put a rope around himself and we let him down over the cliff to get eggs and nests. Art Young and Carl were the “anchors” on the other end of the rope. Once on his way down in one place Bob[71]stepped on a loose rock and knocked it out. When it fell it started a big bunch and they all went tumbling down into the water with a great splash and crash.The cliff was right straight up and down, with a sort of shelf sticking out perhaps twenty feet from the water. After a while Bob went down there, where he could stand and then Dad was let down with a small movie camera to get some pictures. Later the launch went around below them, and while the men at the very top held the line tight, the men in the launch held it tight at the bottom and first Dad and then Robert slid down it into the boat, after first letting down the bucket with eggs and a box of nests and some little ones they had gathered up.[72]
CHAPTER VICHAPTER VIACROSS MELVILLE BAY
CHAPTER VI
By the twentieth of July we were pretty nearly across Melville Bay. That was just exactly a month from the time we started from home which is most awfully good time. Of course we were very lucky for all the way we had practically no real trouble with ice.Melville Bay usually is about the most dangerous and hardest place in the north. Lots of years it may take weeks to make the passage, and sometimes there just isn’t any way to get by it. Later Dr. Rasmussen told me that he has been drifting, frozen in the pack ice, for six weeks solid while trying to get through to the north, and in mid-summer at that.[63]After we left Duck Island I put in quite some time getting our things ready for trading and for presents. Of course we weren’t going to do any real trading, except for little personal things some of us wanted. Most of the stuff was to give natives who helped us in the hunting and collecting of specimens. One of my nice jobs was filling a lot of tin cans with screw tops with candy and sugar. And we also sorted out some gay sweaters and jerseys which Mr. Alex Taylor, who lives at Rye, had given the expedition. (All our crew, by the way, now have Alex Taylor sweaters and they certainly came in handy.)We arrived at Cape York on the night of July 20th. Cape York is a big cape which marks the northern end of Melville Bay and really is the beginning of far North Greenland. The people living there and in the few settlements further north are the Smith Sound tribe of Eskimos, who live nearer the North Pole than any other people. About at this[64]latitude is further north than the most northerly points of the mainland of any of the continents, North America, Europe, or Asia. So we felt we really were beginning to get pretty far north.In a Fjord Back of Upernivik.In a Fjord Back of Upernivik.The Cape itself is a high mountain which sort of spills right down into the sea. The slopes, some of them, are quite red, and the snow is all colored crimson too, from a sort of dust which seems to cover it. This part is called the Crimson Cliffs, and they have been seen and described by about every Arctic expedition. In behind the cape is a great glacier which breaks off right into the water very conveniently. Cap’n Bob put theMorrisseyright up alongside the ice wall and men jumped down on the glacier from the bowsprit and carried lines and fastened the ship so she lay right alongside, as if the ice were a wharf. Of course there was no wind and the water was quiet.Then they took a hose and ran it up a way[65]and put one end in one of the many streams which were running down the top of the glacier, melted snow water. There was enough slope to carry the water into our big tank on deck. Also the sailors filled the barrels, using buckets. It was a great way to get a full load of real ice water.While we were working in the Eskimos came off in their kayaks. We bought a fine kayak for a rifle and some ammunition. The very next day, when we were ashore, we found that the owner of the traded kayak already had a new one well started. I suppose in a few days more he was all fixed up with a boat again. And with his really fine rifle he ought to do most awfully well hunting. I certainly hope so. A kayak to an Eskimo is about the most important thing in life. I imagine a rifle would come next. Compared to an automobile with us, our auto is only a luxury which we really could get along without.Tupiks, the Eskimo Summer Houses Made of Skins, at Karnah.Tupiks, the Eskimo Summer Houses Made of Skins, at Karnah.About a mile from the little settlement of[66]Cape York there is a “bird mountain.” That’s what they call the places where they find the dovkies, or little auks. These are small birds which live on mountain sides where there are talus slopes—that is, big slides of loose rocks all piled up. They make their nests down in the holes and cracks and they are very hard to find.An Eskimo went with us in the launch around to this bird mountain. We climbed up the slope to a regular place they use where there was a sort of rough blind made out of the loose stones. He carried a net with a long handle. We sat down on the slope, partly hidden by the blind. Then the birds would fly past, always in the same direction. They seemed to be always on the move, getting up off the rocks and swinging around in a great circle out over the sea and back again. There were thousands of them.As a bird would fly past us, almost near enough to touch sometimes, the Eskimo[67]would make a quick swoop with the net, andplopa dovkie would be in it. Then he would quickly pull in the net, take the bird out, kill it and be ready for another. This is chiefly the work for women who are awfully good at it and catch hundreds and I guess thousands. They are fine eating, and the skins are used for making bird feather clothing, as lining to wear next the skin.After our Eskimo friend Kaweah had showed us how to do it, I tried. It looked awfully easy. But it wasn’t. I made a lot of misses.Dad and Dan Streeter were looking on and taking pictures, and they laughed as I swiped at the birds and missed them.“Three strikes and out!” they’d call when I scored three misses.But after a while I did catch a few, and some I just hit with the net pole and knocked them down, sort of stunned, when we got them. Dad and Dan also tried, but they[68]didn’t break any records. A fellow with a batting eye like Babe Ruth ought to do pretty well at this game. Anyway, it was great fun, and was of course the first time I ever caught birds with a net. Funnily, almost the next day I actually did catch some others with a loop on a string.Where the vessel lay that afternoon was right next a big lot of bay ice, pans of ice with some water between them. In the distance here and there we could see seal. They sit up in the sun, but almost always right near a hole in the ice. And the minute they get frightened they slide off and are gone. Even if you shoot them, unless death is very quick, they are likely to flop off into the water, where they sink.Dan and one of the Eskimos tried some stalking, crawling up on the seal orpooeeseeas the Eskimos call them. And he had pretty good luck, hitting three, two of which they got. They also got pretty wet crawling over[69]the ice and through pools of water melted by the sun. Anyway, it was our first game. The seal meat was fine, too.The next morning we had moved northward to Parker Snow Bay. We were anchored there when I woke up. It’s a beautiful place, a little bay right on the coast, with a bit of flat land with a glacier coming right down behind it and stretching up to the great ice cap. Two steep fine mountains are on either side of the glacier, and one of them we named Bartlett Peak. Along the shore one of these mountains has steep cliffs which fall right down into the water. And there is a great bird rookery, or loomery as the Newfoundland folks call it.On the shore we saw a blue fox. And then after breakfast we went to work at the rookery to get specimens. It was a beautiful calm sunny day and we really had a grand time. Some of us were at it until afternoon and sent back a dory to bring us some lunch.[70]We climbed up a cliff, getting at it on the easier side of a steep little point. From there we could reach right down to some of the nests. We could even touch some of the birds, both auks and kittywakes. They were sitting on the nests, either with eggs or very young birds. (Three weeks later when we came back there were many more young ones.)It was here that I used a light line to catch several birds. I made a slip noose in the end and let it a few feet over the edge of the cliff so that it rested on a nest. Then when the bird came back, if she settled down right, I pulled the noose suddenly. It worked quite well.Bob Peary, who is very handy at getting around and climbing, put a rope around himself and we let him down over the cliff to get eggs and nests. Art Young and Carl were the “anchors” on the other end of the rope. Once on his way down in one place Bob[71]stepped on a loose rock and knocked it out. When it fell it started a big bunch and they all went tumbling down into the water with a great splash and crash.The cliff was right straight up and down, with a sort of shelf sticking out perhaps twenty feet from the water. After a while Bob went down there, where he could stand and then Dad was let down with a small movie camera to get some pictures. Later the launch went around below them, and while the men at the very top held the line tight, the men in the launch held it tight at the bottom and first Dad and then Robert slid down it into the boat, after first letting down the bucket with eggs and a box of nests and some little ones they had gathered up.[72]
By the twentieth of July we were pretty nearly across Melville Bay. That was just exactly a month from the time we started from home which is most awfully good time. Of course we were very lucky for all the way we had practically no real trouble with ice.
Melville Bay usually is about the most dangerous and hardest place in the north. Lots of years it may take weeks to make the passage, and sometimes there just isn’t any way to get by it. Later Dr. Rasmussen told me that he has been drifting, frozen in the pack ice, for six weeks solid while trying to get through to the north, and in mid-summer at that.[63]
After we left Duck Island I put in quite some time getting our things ready for trading and for presents. Of course we weren’t going to do any real trading, except for little personal things some of us wanted. Most of the stuff was to give natives who helped us in the hunting and collecting of specimens. One of my nice jobs was filling a lot of tin cans with screw tops with candy and sugar. And we also sorted out some gay sweaters and jerseys which Mr. Alex Taylor, who lives at Rye, had given the expedition. (All our crew, by the way, now have Alex Taylor sweaters and they certainly came in handy.)
We arrived at Cape York on the night of July 20th. Cape York is a big cape which marks the northern end of Melville Bay and really is the beginning of far North Greenland. The people living there and in the few settlements further north are the Smith Sound tribe of Eskimos, who live nearer the North Pole than any other people. About at this[64]latitude is further north than the most northerly points of the mainland of any of the continents, North America, Europe, or Asia. So we felt we really were beginning to get pretty far north.
In a Fjord Back of Upernivik.In a Fjord Back of Upernivik.
In a Fjord Back of Upernivik.
The Cape itself is a high mountain which sort of spills right down into the sea. The slopes, some of them, are quite red, and the snow is all colored crimson too, from a sort of dust which seems to cover it. This part is called the Crimson Cliffs, and they have been seen and described by about every Arctic expedition. In behind the cape is a great glacier which breaks off right into the water very conveniently. Cap’n Bob put theMorrisseyright up alongside the ice wall and men jumped down on the glacier from the bowsprit and carried lines and fastened the ship so she lay right alongside, as if the ice were a wharf. Of course there was no wind and the water was quiet.
Then they took a hose and ran it up a way[65]and put one end in one of the many streams which were running down the top of the glacier, melted snow water. There was enough slope to carry the water into our big tank on deck. Also the sailors filled the barrels, using buckets. It was a great way to get a full load of real ice water.
While we were working in the Eskimos came off in their kayaks. We bought a fine kayak for a rifle and some ammunition. The very next day, when we were ashore, we found that the owner of the traded kayak already had a new one well started. I suppose in a few days more he was all fixed up with a boat again. And with his really fine rifle he ought to do most awfully well hunting. I certainly hope so. A kayak to an Eskimo is about the most important thing in life. I imagine a rifle would come next. Compared to an automobile with us, our auto is only a luxury which we really could get along without.
Tupiks, the Eskimo Summer Houses Made of Skins, at Karnah.Tupiks, the Eskimo Summer Houses Made of Skins, at Karnah.
Tupiks, the Eskimo Summer Houses Made of Skins, at Karnah.
About a mile from the little settlement of[66]Cape York there is a “bird mountain.” That’s what they call the places where they find the dovkies, or little auks. These are small birds which live on mountain sides where there are talus slopes—that is, big slides of loose rocks all piled up. They make their nests down in the holes and cracks and they are very hard to find.
An Eskimo went with us in the launch around to this bird mountain. We climbed up the slope to a regular place they use where there was a sort of rough blind made out of the loose stones. He carried a net with a long handle. We sat down on the slope, partly hidden by the blind. Then the birds would fly past, always in the same direction. They seemed to be always on the move, getting up off the rocks and swinging around in a great circle out over the sea and back again. There were thousands of them.
As a bird would fly past us, almost near enough to touch sometimes, the Eskimo[67]would make a quick swoop with the net, andplopa dovkie would be in it. Then he would quickly pull in the net, take the bird out, kill it and be ready for another. This is chiefly the work for women who are awfully good at it and catch hundreds and I guess thousands. They are fine eating, and the skins are used for making bird feather clothing, as lining to wear next the skin.
After our Eskimo friend Kaweah had showed us how to do it, I tried. It looked awfully easy. But it wasn’t. I made a lot of misses.
Dad and Dan Streeter were looking on and taking pictures, and they laughed as I swiped at the birds and missed them.
“Three strikes and out!” they’d call when I scored three misses.
But after a while I did catch a few, and some I just hit with the net pole and knocked them down, sort of stunned, when we got them. Dad and Dan also tried, but they[68]didn’t break any records. A fellow with a batting eye like Babe Ruth ought to do pretty well at this game. Anyway, it was great fun, and was of course the first time I ever caught birds with a net. Funnily, almost the next day I actually did catch some others with a loop on a string.
Where the vessel lay that afternoon was right next a big lot of bay ice, pans of ice with some water between them. In the distance here and there we could see seal. They sit up in the sun, but almost always right near a hole in the ice. And the minute they get frightened they slide off and are gone. Even if you shoot them, unless death is very quick, they are likely to flop off into the water, where they sink.
Dan and one of the Eskimos tried some stalking, crawling up on the seal orpooeeseeas the Eskimos call them. And he had pretty good luck, hitting three, two of which they got. They also got pretty wet crawling over[69]the ice and through pools of water melted by the sun. Anyway, it was our first game. The seal meat was fine, too.
The next morning we had moved northward to Parker Snow Bay. We were anchored there when I woke up. It’s a beautiful place, a little bay right on the coast, with a bit of flat land with a glacier coming right down behind it and stretching up to the great ice cap. Two steep fine mountains are on either side of the glacier, and one of them we named Bartlett Peak. Along the shore one of these mountains has steep cliffs which fall right down into the water. And there is a great bird rookery, or loomery as the Newfoundland folks call it.
On the shore we saw a blue fox. And then after breakfast we went to work at the rookery to get specimens. It was a beautiful calm sunny day and we really had a grand time. Some of us were at it until afternoon and sent back a dory to bring us some lunch.[70]
We climbed up a cliff, getting at it on the easier side of a steep little point. From there we could reach right down to some of the nests. We could even touch some of the birds, both auks and kittywakes. They were sitting on the nests, either with eggs or very young birds. (Three weeks later when we came back there were many more young ones.)
It was here that I used a light line to catch several birds. I made a slip noose in the end and let it a few feet over the edge of the cliff so that it rested on a nest. Then when the bird came back, if she settled down right, I pulled the noose suddenly. It worked quite well.
Bob Peary, who is very handy at getting around and climbing, put a rope around himself and we let him down over the cliff to get eggs and nests. Art Young and Carl were the “anchors” on the other end of the rope. Once on his way down in one place Bob[71]stepped on a loose rock and knocked it out. When it fell it started a big bunch and they all went tumbling down into the water with a great splash and crash.
The cliff was right straight up and down, with a sort of shelf sticking out perhaps twenty feet from the water. After a while Bob went down there, where he could stand and then Dad was let down with a small movie camera to get some pictures. Later the launch went around below them, and while the men at the very top held the line tight, the men in the launch held it tight at the bottom and first Dad and then Robert slid down it into the boat, after first letting down the bucket with eggs and a box of nests and some little ones they had gathered up.
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